And I? Sahib, I am a Delhi Pathan, and a young
man with little children. The Havildar’s
mare was in the compound. I ran to her and rode:
the black wrath of the Sirkar was behind me, and I
knew not whither to go. Till she dropped and
died I rode the red mare; and by the blessing of God,
who is without doubt on the side of all just men, I
escaped. But the Havildar and the rest are now
in jail.
I am a scamp? It is as the Presence pleases.
God will make the Presence a Lord, and give him a
rich Mem-sahib as fair as a Peri to wife, and
many strong sons, if he makes me his orderly.
The Mercy of Heaven be upon the Sahib! Yes, I
will only go to the bazar and bring my children to
these so-palace-like quarters, and then—the
Presence is my Father and my Mother, and I, Afzal
Khan, am his slave.
Ohe, Sirdar-ji! I also am of the household
of the Sahib.
Great is the justice of the White Man—greater
the power of a lie.
—Native
Proverb.
This is your English Justice, Protector of the Poor.
Look at my back and loins which are beaten with sticks—heavy
sticks! I am a poor man, and there is no justice
in Courts.
There were two of us, and we were born of one birth,
but I swear to you that I was born the first, and
Ram Dass is the younger by three full breaths.
The astrologer said so, and it is written in my horoscope—the
horoscope of Durga Dass.
But we were alike—I and my brother who
is a beast without honour—so alike that
none knew, together or apart, which was Durga Dass.
I am a Mahajun of Pali in Marwar, and an honest man.
This is true talk. When we were men, we left
our father’s house in Pali, and went to the
Punjab, where all the people are mud-heads and sons
of asses. We took shop together in Isser Jang—I
and my brother—near the big well where
the Governor’s camp draws water. But Ram
Dass, who is without truth, made quarrel with me,
and we were divided. He took his books, and his
pots, and his Mark, and became a bunnia—a
money-lender—in the long street of Isser
Jang, near the gateway of the road that goes to Montgomery.
It was not my fault that we pulled each other’s
turbans. I am a Mahajun of Pali, and I always
speak true talk. Ram Dass was the thief and the
liar.
Now no man, not even the little children, could at
one glance see which was Ram Dass and which was Durga
Dass. But all the people of Isser Jang—may
they die without sons!—said that we were
thieves. They used much bad talk, but I took
money on their bedsteads and their cooking-pots and
the standing crop and the calf unborn, from the well
in the big square to the gate of the Montgomery road.
They were fools, these people—unfit to
cut the toe-nails of a Marwari from Pali. I lent
money to them all. A little, very little only—here
a pice and there a pice. God is my witness that
I am a poor man! The money is all with Ram Dass—may
his sons turn Christian, and his daughter be a burning
fire and a shame in the house from generation to generation!
May she die unwed, and be the mother of a multitude
of bastards! Let the light go out in the house
of Ram Dass, my brother. This I pray daily twice—with
offerings and charms.
